FAMILY ENDOWMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19550, 1 February 1927, Page 10

FAMILY ENDOWMENT.

The efforts that are being made in New South Wales to give practical shape to the Labour Government's plan of establishing a family endowment scheme have apparently made little progress beyond discovering the enormous difficulties of carrying out the original proposals. Within the last few months, the State Ministry was so desperately in need of money that it had to draw upon the main road funds and to revive taxation of newspapers. Now it has launched upon an undertaking which is estimated to cost £8,000,000 a year, so that the State Treasurer must find sources to yield £2,000,000 more in taxation in addition to the special tax on wages-sheets of £6,000,000. Apart from the obstacle of cost the apparent generosity of the proposals is heavily depreciated by the invidious distinction of their application. Their benefit is clearly limited to industrial wage-earners with an income definition of £4OO or £SOO, so that no one, no matter how small his income' or how large his family, will receive the endowment unless he is employed on wages. Small shopkeepers, farmers, clergymen and many other workers who are not literally wage-earners are apparently utterly excluded from the proposed benefits; their only portion will be greater embarrassment through the inevitable rise in the cost of living that will be induced by the distribution of the financial burden of the scheme. If they are to be included, the cost will be so greatly increased that endowment of the proposed dimensions may have to be abandoned. There has been criticism of the modesty of the New Zealand scheme, but it has two valuable features—there is no discrimination in the granting of the allowances, and the whole plan is sufficiently prudent to be practical. The wisdom of making the experiment on a small scale is proved by the difficulties that have arisen in New South Wales ; practical operation will produce evidence whether it is possible to advance to more liberal provisions.